


follow your heartbeat to freedom

by withkissesfour



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Coming Out, Introspection, M/M, Patrick has a crushhhhh, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 22:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18670024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withkissesfour/pseuds/withkissesfour
Summary: He’s always prided himself on making decisions, making them well, making them wisely, but it’s rare that they’re not clouded, directed, guided by the overwhelming need to be liked, an eagerness to please, a desire to be nice, to always be as nice as he can be; and he can’t figure out whether he’s made the right choice once he’s made it.Patrick makes choices, in four parts.





	follow your heartbeat to freedom

**Author's Note:**

> farmerdamsel asked for: for the fic title meme: david/patrick, 'follow your heartbeat to freedom' :)
> 
> You're a gem! I had such a good time writing for these soft boyfriends. Patrick is a sweetpea and owns my whole heart.

i.

 

He decides to leave - again, for good - on a Saturday afternoon. 

It’s been brewing for a while, his usual aptitude for action made useless, turned into resentment - he’s starting to hate this city he loved, starting to hate this apartment, that bed, this couch, her, himself, for making a decision, and then deciding he was wrong. 

But Rachel has a ring on her finger and her feet on the couch, that he hates now, and her hair curtains her face, and her eyes are trained on the book in her lap, and he loves her, he really does. She’s been a constant, a stalwart figure in his adult life, even when they weren’t together. He could never ever hate her, can’t bear the idea that he would grow to, or that he would hurt her, knows he’ll have to, one way or the other. 

He suddenly feels very aware of the still air of the apartment, and her socked toes resting against his denimed thighs, and her slow breath, and the low music, and how  _ not  _ simple he’s made this whole thing, now. He wrenches himself off the couch, mumbles  _ gotta pee  _ as he makes his way to the bedroom, to the bathroom, slams the toilet seat shut and curls over it, head in his hands and bare feet on the cool tiled floor. 

He wants her to leave. He wants her to leave so he can leave, ship off her things, pack up his, get the hell out of dodge. He wants to start again, wants her to start again too, wants it to be as simple as it was before, but it’s not (his fault, he reminds himself)  _ simple  _ now. They’re not high school sweethearts anymore, it’s not a messy, tortured college love-affair. This isn’t just the non-committal screwing around of lost early-thirty-somethings, keen to try other people out, other countries, other futures, so they can get their relationship right this time. This is permanent. She’s going to be his wife. 

He supposes that’s why he did it, if he’s honest - why he proposed. He did it to get her back, a grand gesture after their last shouting match; but it was also something of a last ditch effort to convince himself that all they needed was a little  _ permanency _ , a little stability, assurance of a future together, of growing old, together. It wasn’t that they didn’t work, it wasn’t that he didn’t love her, or that he didn’t feel the way he needed to feel. He just needed to decide, and he hadn’t, and he hated indecision, so why not ask her to marry him. It’s a shitty, unromantic thing to say, to think, but it’s true. 

_ God,  _ he’d be an idiot not to want to marry her. His parents adore her, have always adored her, and she’s been there through it all, mostly, for the formative years of him, the formative years of her. She’d been his first everything, and she was gorgeous, and fairly amazing at everything she did, and she loved him. He could feel that she loved him. He wanted to feel - well - he wanted to feel like she felt, when he knelt down, when her mouth split into a wide, toothy grin, and tears spilt down her cheeks. He was so happy she was happy, and he didn’t think that was that different from how he should have felt - it was happiness, of a form, and it’s always nice when someone says they’ll spend forever with you, isn’t it? That they like you, that they want you. He felt good because he made a decision, and it was sensible, and she’s his best friend, and that was it, until right now, Saturday afternoon, so calm he felt sick about it.

He pushes the breath out of his body, lets his belly fall and his lungs press towards his spine and the sigh rattle around the bathroom walls. 

He can’t just escape. He can’t just go out there and tell her to leave so he can, that it’s not about her - not just about her - it’s about the couch, and the coffee table, and the television, and the guitar propped up against the bookshelf, and the books propped up inside of it and the fridge and the floor of the bathroom that needs regrouting, that he glides his toe across, and that’s it, goodbye. He can’t just yell, can’t be angry at her, because he’s angry at himself, and why should she have to be party to his self-flagellation? How the hell is he supposed to explain that he’s always prided himself on making decisions, making them well, making them wisely, but it’s rare that they’re not clouded, directed, guided by the overwhelming need to be liked, an eagerness to please, a desire to be nice, to always be as nice as he can be; and he can’t figure out whether he’s made the right choice once he’s made it. 

He can’t tell her that she’s not right, for him, right now, or that maybe she’s never been right, they’ve never been right. He also probably shouldn’t say  _ let’s take a break _ \- which is what one them always ends up saying, so they don’t hurt each other. He probably shouldn’t say it, but he probably will, that they should have a breather, that they should keep in touch, because it isn’t true, because they shouldn’t.

‘Did you eat something funny?’

Rachel’s on the other side of the door, and her voice is low, concerned. He’s been in there for a while now, he supposes. He’s got to be a fucking adult about this.

‘Patrick?’

*

He thinks it would be a laugh, if he could tell his friends he lived in a town with that name. He thinks it would be funny, or maybe he’s a little delirious, maybe he’s lost his mind.

He’s tapped out, talked out, feels a lot guilty and a little sad, though not as much as he thought he might. Being a grown up is really, he’s realised, about being able to chase a conversation in circles until both parties get tired, or feel like one has outrun the other, and hold their place while the other catches up, and they can find a mutual exit point, and with him and Rachel that is always taking a break, taking some time. 

It’s comfortable, it’s treacherous, probably,  will come back to bite them in the arse, but they’re too wrecked, this time particularly. She takes her ring off, and he packs up his place without knowing where he’s going, screens calls from his parents until he knows what to say. 

He thinks it’s funny, although they don’t seem to - endlessly worried, endlessly supportive. It feels like an apt description of his current situation, this place just outside of Elmdale, when he doesn’t know how else to describe it. It feels right, he thinks, and he feels good about it, his decision, spur of the moment, for the irony, to move to Schitt's Creek. 

  
  


 

ii.

 

He decides he’s going to ask him out - like, soon - on a Saturday morning.

He’ll do it. He’s gonna do it. 

It’s early,  _ early  _ early, the sun deciding to make an appearance above the treetops, on the horizon; and it’s fairly beautiful if you like that sort of thing, the majesty of nature and all that - which he did, which he does, it  _ does  _ help, he just can’t quite seem to catch - 

He’s just going to ask him. 

He can’t quite seem to catch his breath, can’t seem to pull enough into his lungs, like the back of his throat is stoppered, like his body is too full, already, and it won’t make its way through his veins, or jump between synapses, won’t work away at the muscles, straining in his leg from the ascent. He can’t get his head on straight, so to speak, pun intended. 

He’s just going to do it. He’ll ask him out. He will. 

It’s been running around in his head, the soundtrack to every hike since he met him, in one way or another - since he bought the frame for him, since he got the grant for him, and after late nights and before early mornings with him. 

_ What if he _ \- couldn’t I - _ how about we _ \- he’s just. Gonna do it.

He’s relieved to have some time away from the store, from him. He knows it counteractive to asking out the guy you like, if he’s never, you know, in the same location, but it’s a relief - to be here, or to be there without him. He forgot just how  _ exhausting  _ it was to have a crush. He forgot that it makes him feel like he’s going to be sick, like the swooping nausea that would rip through him if he were to stand at the edge of the rock here, peer over the edge; and if he were to tense every joint in his body to stop himself from careening forward if he touched him, if he laughed at him, at a joke he lets slip casually, like he hasn’t saved up a pile of things to talk to him about, as if he didn’t revel in their back and forth. It’s good, to not feel like that, all the time, to be around him all the time. He wants to be around him all the time.

He knew it was a crush, from the start really, because he’s felt it before. Not with Rachel, though he tried, he did, and tried with a couple of other women, mostly during college, and tried to manufacture feelings that he felt he ought to be feeling until he felt like he was feeling them, but he didn’t - didn’t  _ feel  _ them like he feels them now, with David. It’s only now, with David, and the utter terror of being around him, of coming up with things to say, ways to endear himself to the same degree that he’s endeared by his odd and selfish manner, quick wit, hesitant charm, openness, once you crack the surface, that he feels it, that he recognises the familiarity of that feeling. It comes out of nowhere, and he’s angry with himself that he didn’t figure it out sooner - the crush on his middle school history teacher; or his tearaway science lab partner; or the boy on his baseball team in college, left field, a shock of dark hair, might have been in love with him too; or the man at the bar, a few weeks ago who bought him a drink, who must have seen something he didn’t, must have figured it out sooner than he did. He’s annoyed he didn’t, annoyed that his life might have been different if he had, if he’d known, if he’d made a move, or they had. He’s relieved he didn’t, because maybe then his life might have been different, no town, no shop, no him (stupid sweaters, late starts, and he likes everything about him) and he need to just ask him out, now. 

He’s tried out flirting, or tiptoeing around it so he didn’t bluster his way through it, so he didn’t scare him off. He’s an odd mix of his old courageous self, and some sort of prize idiot, desperate to sound smooth and anxious to impress is never a good mix, and he spends half his day congratulating himself and the other half berating. 

It’s not like him to overthink and he wants to stop, has tried to stop - has tried to leave the prevarication for the early morning freak-out hikes and just  _ ask  _ him to stay at his place (hat and shower-cap, nits and all); just hang back later; just eat at the shop with him instead of going out;  just flirt, try and flirt, try and make the occasional surprised, repressed smile appear, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and the biting, joyful retorts, so he can figure out what they mean, if they mean anything, if he likes him, if he likes Patrick like Patrick likes him.

He’s gone over every possible answer in his head - if he likes him too, if he doesn’t, and what would he do, how would he ask him, would he ask him. He’s done it countless times, steeled his courage on the way up, collected every hint that maybe he felt the same way, gathered them together until they filled him up, swelled his chest with courage by the time he’s reached the rock he perches on now, at the top, and he’s rehearsed it a dozen different ways; full of confidence, only for his bravado to falter, fumble, deflate on the journey down, the more mountains he makes out of the slightest hint of rejection, or disinterest, and the closer he gets to the shop, to nine am, to him. 

But this time it doesn’t go away. This time, as he circles back on himself, the same trodden path, past later morning hikers, it sticks. He feels different, breathless still, queasy, fit to burst, and he thinks it’s his courage holding, because it stays when he reaches town, when he reaches the shop, and David is there. It lingers, expands, spirals when David looks him over, and Patrick can practically see the quips forming, a whole essay about his outfit alone. 

‘You’re in early,’ he says, when it doesn’t come, and David seems a little muted, but he offers a small, teasing smile, leans forward and gestures to a twig from Patrick’s hair, near his ear. He just  _ wants  _ him, he just wants to ask him. 

‘Someone has to watch the store while you have your Reese Witherspoon moment _.’  _

 

*

He wants to kiss him.

The bag, stuffed with tissue paper, is tucked in between David’s legs, and his rings tap on the passenger seat door to the low muffled rhythm on the radio, and he’s biting at his lips as he pauses midway through a story, a rant about his thirtieth birthday, he thinks, but he’s lost his grip on the plot. He can see David blush, suddenly self-conscious about something, his age, or his past, or his storytelling, or the drive home, or the dinner before, and his smile is shy, contained, as he glances over at Patrick, who hasn't said a word, but clears his throat now, says, low and gentle,  _ go on.  _

He still feels nauseous, and the mozzarella sticks briefly cross his mind, but he thinks it’s because the car is crawling into the car park, because they’re passing the motel sign. He thinks it’s because he’s going to park the car, and David’s going to take off his seatbelt, he’s going to open the door, get out, and he won’t have told him, he won’t have kissed him. He wants to kiss him.

‘Well, that was a fun night.’

  
  


iii.

 

He doesn’t decide to marry him first thing on a Saturday morning. He decides to go back to sleep. 

‘Shit, sorry.’ 

He feels the juice spill before he sees it, a cold smack on his chest wrenching him from a mid-morning doze, willing sleep to soak up a hangover he did not expect, and he doesn’t decide it then either - to marry him, to ask. He feels like trash. 

They’d rescued the last bottles of sparkling from the cafe the night before, after Twyla’s patience had dwindled and they’d been shuffled out the door, half-hearted offers to help clean turned down; and popped one on the way home, sending the cork flying into a bush near their shop and taking swigs between them. He felt a sort of carelessness he wasn’t used to. He enjoys direction and David enjoys control, and they’ve both settled into a comfortable pace, in step with each other - adulthood doesn’t feel anywhere near as confusing with him around. But he decided it was his birthday prerogative, and he remembers feeling a little loose by the time they found their way into his apartment, with leftover pizza and wine glasses for the champagne. He remembers feeling adolescent, making out, lazy, messy, laughing on the hardwood floor, David’s stubble rough against his face and his jumper soft and being tugged from his body. He remembers feeling a little tipsy, tired, happy, when they fell asleep atop the covers and around each other. 

But he’s not sure it warrants the ache in his muscles now, as he props himself on his elbows, or the bleary eyes, cotton wool mouth, low thrum of pain in his head.

‘And good morning to you,’ he mumbles, feeling the juice soak through his shirt, grasps the glass shoved into his hand, rubbing at the sleep in his eyes until he can see David, who must have lost his footing on the clothes strewn around the bed, eyebrows somehow downturned and halfway up his forehead at the same time. He scrambles out of his own shirt and, kneeling on the mattress, starts to dab frantically at Patrick’s chest. It’s a criminally expensive tee he’s only ever seen him wear to bed, and he watches for a moment as David tries to soak up the orange stain from his polyblend with it, eyes wide and torso stretched towards him and bottom lip between his teeth, and he’s gone mad, and he wants to marry him. ‘What’re you doing?’

‘I’m - panicking,’ David pulls back, eyeing the colour bleeding through the material in his hand now. Patrick sits up, pulls his shirt over his head and collects it with David’s in a bundle of white and orange he then lobs across the room in the direction of the sink. David watches them fall somewhere near the couch. ‘We should soak those.’

He wants to marry him. The thought crosses his mind again, impatiently, and he doesn’t think to brush it away, doesn’t try to repress it, because he doesn’t want to, but it doesn’t feel quite real. It doesn’t feel like a point of conflict, a fork in the road to be untangled and analysed, a decision to be decisive about, because it’s a  _ want,  _ he supposes. It’s because it’s a thought, because he never thought he would, maybe, after Rachel, or he never thought he’d find anyone like David, never thought he’d  _ love  _ someone - like this - like with him. Or maybe it’s because it’s unformed, an infant idea born when David spilt his breakfast on him, and how can he form coherent thought before coffee anyway? 

He distracts himself, distracts David, by hooking his fingers into the waistband of David’s track pants, pulls him backwards towards the bedhead. David buries his head in the pillows. 

‘I feel rubbish’, comes muffled. ‘Your parents can’t see me like this.’ 

‘They like you plenty as you are,’ David’s face stays pressed into the pillow for a moment, but Patrick can feel the smile bursting at the seams of him, can see his shoulders rise up a little, his fingers grip the sheets. He knows he’s desperate to impress, still, at this post-birthday motel barbecue they said they’d go to later, knows he’ll be tripping over himself, but he doesn’t need to, really doesn’t need to. ‘A shirt might be good, though.’

David’s expression is just as bright as he expected, when he turns to him, contained within the tight-lipped smile he’s seen when he’s brimming, when he feels like happiness might spill out of him if he opens his mouth; and  _ god,  _ he misses David in the mornings when he hasn’t stayed the night. He’s all bed hair and no clothes, decaffeinated and a little softer. He’s a him other people don’t get to see, a him he doesn’t always get to see, because David gets scared he’s going to leave him, scared he’s going to see him and not stay, but Patrick stays, and the longer he stays the more hours past early morning he is himself, tender, petulant, insecure, whip smart, kind.

‘I’ll think about it,’ David says, and hides his smile against Patrick’s shoulder, nipping playfully at the bare skin there, and pressing his mouth to it after, his words muffled in the kiss. ‘How’re you feeling? Taller?’

‘Old,’ he says, stretching to knock David’s ankles with his socked feet when David tries to measure them up, his long legs far nearer the end of the bed, and gesturing to the champagne bottles on the floor just beyond. ‘Can’t bounce back like I did in college.’ 

‘I would have liked to have seen that,’ David says, and Patrick would have liked him to have seen it too. He would have liked him to be around, feels like it would have made things easier. He makes things easier. 

‘I feel - ’ he dodges David’s gaze for a moment, draws in a breath, feels the corners of his mouth twitch upwards as he pushes it out, and he wills himself to keep steady, but his voice snags, catches on the end of a syllable. ‘I feel  _ good  _ though.’ 

David props himself up on an elbow to look him over briefly, before he lurches forward, hands gripping the sheet either side of Patrick’s waist, torso hovering above his and mouth wide in an unchecked grin when he kisses him.

‘Good,’ he says, moving back briefly before Patrick pulls him closer, arms wrapped around him, hands splayed against his shoulder blades as he deepens the kiss. He can feel David’s weight against him, the same steady presence he felt last night, making out on the floor, shuffling to music in the cafe, and when he told his parents about him, about them, and before he told his parents, heart in the pit of his stomach and the end of every nerve alight, a bundle of anxiety, and what if he couldn’t get it out right, what if they didn’t say what he want them to say, and they loved Rachel so much, and he couldn’t - couldn’t -  _ breathe _ , and he was there. David was there, is here, and he feels like something has shifted. It’s like something has been moved from between them, and he can feel every inch of him against every inch of him now, chest is warm against his, mouth soft, body solid, and he wants to marry him. 

‘Ew,’ David groans, pulling away and eyeing Patrick’s chest, the juice that has soaked through the shirt and sticks to his own skin now, too. 

‘We’ll soak the shirts.’

‘We’ll soak my shirt,’ David teases, dropping a kiss to his chest before he moves from the bed.

 

*

He decides he’s going to marry him, going to ask, that afternoon - when David is charring sausages, and their parents are getting wine drunk. 

‘I kind of wanna rescue our lunch, but this is  _ really  _ fun to watch,’ Stevie chuckles, mouth resting against the lip of her beer bottle, gaze following David - poking disinterestedly at the food on the grill, eyes averted from the rising smoke and directed towards them, his expression somewhere between panicked and disgruntled. 

He’s not entirely sure how David got stuck there, thinks his mum, bless her, handed him the tongs when she was handed a glass by Mrs Rose, and he’s been there since. Stevie raises her bottle in his direction. 

‘I think I wanna marry him.’

‘For his culinary skills?’

‘Amongst other traits,’ Patrick chuckles, but he can’t quite bring himself to meet Stevie’s eyes, taking a swig of his beer instead. 

‘You think?’

‘I want to marry him. I want to ask him,’ he says, drops his voice, just in case it might carry, somehow, steals a glance at her, brows raised, sceptical, surprised.

‘Did you just decide that?’

‘Yes - well, no. He spilled a glass of juice on me this morning.’ 

‘And you thought, this is it, man I want to spend my life with?’

‘Yeah, pretty much,’ he mumbles, and finally looks at her, looking at him, searching for an alternate end goal for the conversation, searching for a punchline, or a quick exit, or a  _ maybe later,  _ from him. It feels  _ very  _ serious, kind of life-changing all of a sudden, this conversation, and he needs her to know he’s made up his mind, knows now he’s made up his mind, no balancing act, no pro-con, right-wrong rigmarole, or thinking about what people would think, except for David, or raking himself over the coals for his take-charge, all-in attitude if it doesn’t end up the way he plans. He wanted it, this morning, has wanted it for a while. He  _ wants  _ this, really wants it, and he’s fairly certain David wants it too, so he’s going to ask him, and that’s that. ‘I’m going to ask him.’ 

‘Well, fuck,’ Stevie breathes out, slumps back in her chair, and he can see a smile bubbling, can see her gaze wander over to David.

‘What do you think?’ 

‘You asking for my blessing or something?’ 

‘Um, yeah,’ he says, and Stevie laughs out a sob, lets a few tears fall into her lap, into her hands, which she lets Patrick hold, for a moment, before she swats him away, rubs angrily at her eyes, takes a few shallow breaths. 

‘Yeah, alright,’ she says, eventually, makes some effort at a nonchalant shrug, but she’s grinning, hair curtaining er face as she nods towards David, waving in their direction, flailing in their direction. She catches Patrick’s arm as he shuffles out of his chair, a rescue party for edible lunch, and she’s teasing him, and she’s deadly serious, when she leans forward. ‘Treat him good.’ 

‘Yes, ma’am.’ 

 

iv.

 

It’s a Saturday afternoon. He marries him. 

  
  



End file.
